It recently came to my attention that Tom Cruise – everyone’s favorite gibbering, bouncing, Oprah-shaking loonball – had embarked on another epic journey to Planet Bonehead. He and his fiance Katie Holmes are going to have a baby. I do realize some of you may not find this as horrifying as I do; however, the novelty value hits as soon as you consider Cruise’s scientologist faith. Many scientologists, including Kelly Preston and John Travolta, have suggested that the future Mrs. Cruise have a “silent birth.”

For those of you who are mercifully unfamiliar with this, it comes from Scientologist doctrine. Basically they believe that screaming, shouting, or even talking during labor may cause fear and anxiety in later life, as the baby may think it’s not wanted in this life and thus will have irrational fears later on.

Also, it’s crucial, for some reason, that the birthing mother not be given any kind of painkiller. Finally, the doctrine states that the baby should not be spoken to, prodded, or tested in any way for a week after it is born – theoretically because they have gone through so much trauma during the birthing process that the world should wait until they’re ready. Right.

Frankly, Scientology has always seemed only a hop, skip, and a jump away from

tin foil hats and alien anal probes, but this is truly disturbing. The medical establishment says that children need interaction with their parents from the very beginning of their lives, so immersing your child in silence for a week after birth is so vastly counterintuitive that it boggles my mind.

According to the New York Daily News, L. Ron Hubbard (scientology’s founder and Wack-Job in Chief) describes the process in his book Dianetics: “Maintain silence in the presence of birth to save the sanity of the mother and the child and safeguard the home to which they will go.”

All this proves is that Hubbard, at least, may actually be from another planet.

John Travolta’s wife Kelly Preston had a silent birth several years ago. Preston has said that she got most of the way through it until she broke down and begged for an epidural, but at that point it was too late.

John Travolta said to the New York Daily News that silent birth is a “beautiful, still experience that lovingly brings a child into the world without screaming or talking.” Granted, he didn’t push a miniature human being through his genitals. But even Kelly Preston, who did, seems remarkably blas about the experience.

Any religious practice needs special consideration when it involves infants and those too young to make a decision for themselves. Especially in this case, when it may affect the development of children whose only crime is being born to loonball parents.

Yeah, maybe, if you want to look tough in front of the emergency room people, you can go without anesthetic or talking during birth. But to leave an infant without human contact for its first week of life is wholly ridiculous. And doing it because a failed 1950s science-fiction author said so is doubly ridiculous.